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OF THE 

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NORTH AND THE SOUTH. 



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THE 



RELATIVE TERRITORIAL STATUS 



THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. 



To J. D. B. De Bow, Esq. 

Sir : In the epistolary essays I addressed you through the 
February and March numbers of De Bow's Review, for the year 
1857, I endeavored somewhat from a stand-point high above the 
head of the mere partizan, in the light of political philoso- 
phy, observant of truth and disdainful of subterfuge, to view 
first, the political, and next, the moral and social relations 
existing between the non-slaveholding and the slaveholding 
States of the confederacy ; to expose the dangers arising from 
those relations that threaten the stability of the slaveholding 
States in the Union ; and to trace the ultimate decline and 
fall, first of Southern institutions, and next of Southern 
society, if not of all society, to the predominating iconoclas- 
tic and agrarian influences of the non-slaveholding power, 
after that power shall have destroyed all conservative influ- 
ences, and established the simple majority principle as the 
rule of government, to the exclusion of the limitations upon 
that principle in the Constitution. 

From the same position, in the same connection, and with 



£44 



RELATIVE TERRITORIAL STATUS 



/V\3* 



the same object and design, I again address you. The shift- 
ing scenes of the dread drama of revolution, so long stealth- 
ily progressing in the land, are passing rapidly before us, and 
its clamoring events leave me no more to repose and silence. 
Two years have scarcely passed since my last utterances, and 
already they resound around us as realized and fearful proph- 
ecies. Already the Black Republican banner has gathered 
beneath its folds the agrarian legions of the North ; already 
the lines of the Democracy are broken, disjointed and dis- 
tracted ; already the heel of Seward is uplifted with the 
might of Csesar, to crush the enfeebled and prostrate South. 
Once more I appeal to Southern statesmen to forego their 
miserable schemes of personal selfishness and petty ambition, 
pursued too sedulously and absorbingly, if not criminally, to 
the neglect of the nearest and dearest rights and interests of 
their countrymen. Again I invoke patriotism to lend all its 
aids, energies and powers to secure the safety of the South in 
the Union, as the only possible mode of securing' the Union 
in safely without the subversion of the Constitution ; of 
avoiding the destruction of the principle of confederation and 
the establishment of the principle of consolidation ; of repressing 
Empire, with the States as provinces and the territories as 
pro-consular governments ! nay more ! as the only mode of 

PRESERVING SOCIETY ITSELF O.V THE BASIS OF THE ALTAR, HOME, 
AND THE FAMILY CIRCLE, THE BlBLE AND CHRISTIANITY J OF GUARD- 
ING AGAINST OUR PROGRESSION TOWARDS CONCUBINAGE, AND ALL 
THOSE OTHER EVILS THAT AFFLICTED THE SOCIAL WORLD, AND 
WRECKED THE MORAL AYORLD THROUGH THE RoMAN WORLD, RE- 
QUIRING THE REDEEMING AND RESTORING ADVENT OF A GOD ! ! 

Lest you may have forgotten the earlier positions of the 
argument, I would have you recur to the epistles mentioned, 
for when I shall have finished these papers, I trust it will be 
seen that my conclusions are not only germain to, consistent 
with, and logically deduced from my premises, but that both 
stand together as the true embodiment of the times. 

The matured mind, accustomed to philosophical reflection, 
cannot fail to perceive that the geographical and territorial 
question involves every other existing between the North and 



I 



OF THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. O 

the South ; that geographical and territorial relations involve 
political relations, as the latter involve moral and social rela- 
tions ; and, therefore, that whatever has contributed, or 
contributes to the territorial ascendancy of the North, has 
contributed and contributes to its political, moral, and social 
ascendancy. If the North be established territorially ascendant 
over the South, the South must prepare for political, moral, 
and social absorption by the North in the Union ; and if the 
political, moral, and social relations of the North are antago- 
nistic to those of the South, as in fact they are, the political, 
moral, and social institutions and customs of the South 
must be subverted, destroyed, erased, and substituted by 
those of the North, and such others as the North may deter- 
mine to substitute. Nor will it fail to be seen in the consid- 
eration of the question, that the institution of negro slavery 
organized on the patriarchal principle, constitutes the lead- 
ing political, moral, and social element, the absence or pres- 
ence of which distinctively characterizes the two sections, and 
moulds the separate features of the one in striking contrast 
with those of the other: and that upon the existence or ex- 
tinguishment of negro slavery as a patriarchal institution, 
equally depends first, upon its existence, the integrity of the 
South, Hie preservation of the Constitution, the perpetuation 
of the Confederacy, and the conservation of society ; and 
next, upon its extinguishment, the supremacy of the North, 
the overthrow of the Republic, the establishment of Empire, 
and the destruction of society. 

POLITICO-HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE SUBJECT. 

Whatever was and is public territory, or "common prop- 
erty" within the meaning of the Constitution, derived and 
derives its origin from six sources mainly, to wit : first, from 
the cessions made to the general government by such of the 
thirteen original States that held territory to cede, at the time 
of the formation and adoption of the Constitution and our 
present government ; second, from the Louisiana "purchase" 
made by President Jefferson ; third, from the Florida "pur- 
chase" made by President Monroe; fourth, from the "annex- 
ation of Texas" made by President Tyler ; fifth, from the 
" Mexican acquisitions" made by President Polk ; and sixth, 
from the " Mesilla valley" or " Arizona purchase" made by 
President Pierce. 

The public acts by which the public domain thus ceded, 
purchased, or acquired, has been chiefly controlled in respect 
to population, and has come to be invested cither finally as 
States, or as territory to be formed into States, with a clearly 



4 RELATIVE TERRITORIAL STATUS 

defined slaveholding or non-slaveholding character in respect 
to domestic institutions, may be found first, in the ''Virginia 
Ordinance" of 1784—7 ; second, the " Missouri Compromise" 
of 1819-'20 ; third, the " Wil mot Proviso" of 1846-'? ; fourth, 
the " Compromises of 1850;" fifth, the "Douglas Compro- 
mise" or " Kansas-Nebraska Act" of 1854 ; and sixth, the 
" English Compromise" or " Kansas Bill" of 1858. 

At the time of the formation of the Constitution and the 
adoption of the government under it, New-Hampshire, Massa- 
chusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New-York, Pennsylvania 
and New-Jersey, composed the northern section of States, and 
Delaware, Maryland, "Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, 
and Georgia, composed the southern section of States ; the 
former having abolished negro slavery as uncongenial and 
unprofitable to them, and the latter having retained negro 
slavery as a matter of necessity and public polity, if not of 
private profit. In the former, negro slavery had never become 
interwoven with domestic life to such an extent as to render 
its maintenance essential to the good of society, and to the 
preservation of the white race unadulterate. In the latter it 
had become essential to both of these purposes that it should 
be maintained. The former held but a limited extent of ter- 
ritory, in a cold and barren region between themselves and 
the British Possessions of New-Brunswick and Nova Scotia. 
The latter possessed an immense domain of inexhaustible 
fertility, lying, for the most part, in a salubrious and delight- 
ful climate, and bounded only by the Atlantic ocean, the Mis- 
sissippi river, and the great lakes. The latter in themselves 
were more extensive than the former. If, when the Constitu- 
tion was being framed, it had been mutually agreed that there 
should be applied to these territorial possessions the local laws 
of the States to which they respectively belonged, and that 
under this application of the local law they should be fostered 
into future States, not only would all the country south of ihe 
Ohio river, between that river, the Mississippi and the Atlantic, 
and north of Florida and Louisiana, have been as it is, form- 
ed into slaveholding States, but also, all that country between 
the Mississippi and the lakes, and north of the Ohio river, 
would have been formed into slaveholding States ; and none 
but that region embraced by Vermont and Maine would have 
been formed, as it has been formed, into non-slaveholding 
States. The non-slaveholding States, although having a ma- 
jority of one in the beginning, would soon have been reduced 
to a powerless minority. This disparity in favor of the slave- 
holding States would have been still further increased by the 
continued application of the local law to the Louisana, Flori- 



OF THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. 

da and Texas Territories ; and although the same law might 
have been afterwards observed with regard to the whole of 
the Mexican acquisitions, operating in behalf the non-slave- 
holding States, their equality of powers in the Union could 
never have been re-established. How, then, has it happened, 
that the South have become dwarfed and shorn of their strength 
in the Union, whilst the North have assumed gigantic propor- 
tions and a controlling predominance ? The answer is only to 
be seen through the measures of acquisition, and the acts of 
disposition above mentioned ; and these are to be judged of 
alone in the light of the political history of their respective 
periods, as affected by sectional cupidity, party success, or 
personal ambition. 

THE CONCESSIONS MADE BY THE STATES, AND THE VIRGINIA 
ORDINANCE OF 1784- "87. 

When the General Convention of the States of the old con- 
federation assembled in Philadelphia to form a more perfect 
Union, and with that intent to prepare our present Constitu- 
tion and form of government, one of the principal difficulties 
in the way of the work of union was interposed by the smaller 
States, chiefly those of the North, and was based by them on 
the facts of their limited extent of territory in comparison 
with the immense territorial domains of most of the southern 
States. Indeed, the whole of the New-England States combined 
were not as extensive as Virginia, or Georgia, or either of the 
Carolinas separately. Georgia and the Carolinas reached out 
their borders to the French and Spanish settlements, and the 
Mississippi river. Virginia held by her charter or by conquest 
all of that vast and fruitful region extending on the west to 
the Mississippi river, and stretching to the north and northwest 
far beyond the Ohio river to the great lakes and the regions of 
prolonged winters. By the local law then in being throughout 
all these latitudes, negro slavery co-extensively with the 
law existed. Nor had science then developed the law of 
climate as applicable to the negro race in common with God's 
other creatures and creations. Nothing whatever militated 
against the idea that the southern States might introduce and 
maintain negro slavery wherever they held a foot of land, 
from Florida to the Straits of Michilimackinac. No mawkish 
sentimentalism nor raving fanaticism held sway over the 
question. Although they of the North had satisfied them- 
selves that negro slaves were unadapted to their soil, produc- 
tions and climate, yet they had liberated few in comparison 
with the number sold by them to the South, and were even 
now clamoring in the general convention for a continuation of 






li 



RELATIVE TERRITORIAL STATUS 



the slave traffic with Africa, for the benefit of their merchants 
and shippers, nor would they suffer that traffic to be abolished, 
but claimed it should be continued under the protection of the 
Constitution for twenty years longer. Nevertheless they ob- 
jected to union with the vast territorial States of the South, 
for fear of being overshadowed by the latter in the new gov- 
ernment. 

At an early day a similar objection had been started to the 
final ratification of the old articles of confederation, on which 
the general Congress had been much exercised ; nor had that 
body adjudicated the question to the general satisfaction. The 
protest entered by Maryland in 177S, to the retention by the 
larger States of their " western possessions," concurred in at 
the time by New- Jersey and Delaware, was now greedily seiz- 
ed upon by the New-England States, and pertinaciously urged 
to the serious hazard of union. New-Hampshire, Connecti- 
cut, and Rhode Island, together with Maryland, and taking 
with them Pennsylvania, had either withdrawn, or withheld 
their delegates from the general Congress, leaving but three of 
the States north, and only eight States in all, represented 
therein. The motives of Maryland in her original movement 
are plain. They are to be seen in her instructions to her dele- 
gates of the 21st May, 1779. She patriotically looked to the 
general welfare; she feared an " imperinm in imperio" on 
the part of Virginia ; and she desired a fund provided for the 
payment of the debts of the Revolution. The designs of the 
northern States that now co-operated with her, were covert, 
subtle and selfish. Under the cloak of patriotism and general 
sympathy, they looked to the attainment not only of their 
political co-equality, but of sectional predominance in the 
Union. True, the resolutions of Mr. Jefferson of March 1st, 
1784, as amended, ceding the possessions of Virginia beyond 
the Ohio river, had been adopted on the 23d of April follow- 
ing, but the clause in restriction of negro slavery, originally 
inserted, had been stricken out, at the instance of North Caro- 
lina, so that, though the territory was ceded, slave-holding 
States might be still formed there, and the South might still 
maintain sectional ascendancy in the Union. The objecting 
States of the North saw all this even then, and they determin- 
ed to imperil everything, or else reap to themselves that fair 
inheritance and the power it would bring. 

At this critical juncture in the General Congress, fortun- 
ately for the Union, the General Convention assembled. The 
conferences between the members of the two bodies were, at 
first, gloomy and ominous ; but out of these interviews finally 
arose instructions from Virginia to her delegates in the Con- 



OF THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. 7 

gress, to recur to and re-consider the resolutions of 1784 with 
an eye single to the purposes of union. Accordingly, after 
nine years of ineffectual effort on the subject, exhausting 
drafts, reports and amendments in vain, the proceedings, under 
the active and earnest auspices of Messrs. Carrington and Lee, 
of Virginia, and Dane, of Massachusetts, culminated at length, 
on the thirteenth day of July, in the celebrated State-paper, 
styled the " Ordinance of 1787," containing a clause inge- 
niously restricting negro slavery, coupled with a provision for 
the rendil ion, of fugitive slaves. This action of the General 
Congress was immediately acceded to by the General Conven- 
tion, which simultaneously added to the proposed Constitution, 
first, a clause in relation to the rendition of fugitive slaves, 
and next, a clause in relation to slave representation, as they 
are now to be seen in that instrument ; and thus this long 
contested matter was settled, and the way to union was se- 
cured. The North triumphed in their policy, as they have al- 
ways done. 

Through the clause of the " Ordinance of 1787" restricting 
negro slavery to the Ohio, the North rather than the Union 
gained from Virginia all of her possessions beyond that river, 
embracing the present States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi- 
gan, and Wisconsin. The contagion of profligate surrender 
foolishly insisted for by Maryland, politically insisted upon by 
the North, and weakly yielded by Virginia, was quickly caught 
by Georgia and the Carolinas, and they, whilst placing their 
treasures in the general coffers, opened their lands as " com- 
mon property," notwithstanding their indisputable right to the 
local law in recognition of negro slavery, thereby admitting 
and receiving any number of non-slaveholders on equal terms 
with the original proprietors. Under these circumstances what 
less could the North do than surrender the inhospitable region 
of Vermont and Maine, the more especially since that surren- 
der was only ostensibly to the Union, and could only redound 
to themselves, they well knowing that no slaveholder would 
ever proceed there to live. The doubtful claim of Connecti- 
cut to the " Western Reserve," a mere patch at best, is un- 
worthy of serious mention. 

In modern times it has been ascribed to Mr. Jefferson, that, 
in drafting the Resolut'oas of 1784, which culminated in the 
" Ordinance of 1787," he was operated upon by mere senti- 
ments of negro-emancipation, or the abstract desire to exclude 
negro slavery from the territory to be controlled, through a su- 
perlative regard for human right and human liberty, without 
consideration* as to the nature and character of the people to 
be affected, or the general fitness of things. In the days of 



5 RELATIVE TERRITORIAL STATUS 

revolutionary fervor and fraternization, before the wand of 
science had unfolded the physiological and anatomical differ- 
ences stamped by the Almighty upon the varieties of man, con- 
stituting and marking the one immutably inferior to the other, 
there might be found some excuse for such ideas and senti- 
ments that cannot now be accorded to those who entertain 
them. But to attribute to a statesman and thinker as emi- 
nent and profound as Mr. Jefferson always was, such limited, 
ignorant, and unwise conceptions and emotions, at any time, is 
to do his memory incalculable injustice. It is true his heart 
was full of humanity, and his conduct towards his fellow-men 
was usually directed by the kindliest impulses, but his mind 
was equally sagacious, politic, and comprehensive, and his de- 
signs far-reaching, practical, and just. Therefore, instead of 
contracting his reflections and purposes to so narrow a com- 
pass, let it rather be presumed that he foresaw many bitter 
feuds and much bloodshed growing out of the mutual rivalries 
and jealousies of the States as disunited republics, or united 
into several confederacies ; that he feared, if separated from 
each other, or in any manner divided, that some, or all of 
them, might again be subjected to European dominion ; that he 
thoroughly understood the government established between 
them under the pressure of the Revolution was inadequate to 
the task of peace, progress, internal development, and general 
prosperity ; and that under these circumstances he desired, as 
the chiefest good to each and to all, to bring about "« more 
perfect union," assuring domestic tranquillity and freedom from 
external violence. Thus contemplating the question, and view- 
ing the States with their Territories as an entirety, as he must 
have done, for no one then imagined that either France or 
Spain would ever agree to part with any portion of their Amer- 
ican continental possessions for a pecuniary consideration, and 
conquest was out of thought, the conclusion almost necessarily 
forced itself upon him, that the territorial disparity between 
the North and the South would present an effectual barrier to 
any future legislation in the line of union. It required little 
prescience to divine that all the country held by (Georgia and 
the Carolinas, as well as Kentucky, would be settled up 
principally by a slaveholding population, and formed into slave- 
holding States ; and that, if Virginia held to her local laios in 
respect to the North-west territory, all that region would like- 
wise become slaveholding States — thus reducing the North in 
the proposed union to a cipher, geographically and politically, 
to which, in all probability, they would never assent. To re- 
move these prudential apprehensions on the part -of the North, 



OF THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. V 

by securing their future equality with the South, and conse- 
quently, to pave the way to the great blessing of " a more per- 
fect union," were doubtless the true and more worthy motives 
that operated upon Mr. Jefferson to draft the Resolutions of 
1784, with the clause restricting negro slavery ; and such un- 
questionably were the reasons that induced Virginia to revive 
those Resolutions in 1787. 

There are several notable things to be hereby observed, 
marking even at this early day the characteristic differences 
between the two sections, and displaying in striking colors the 
artifice, duplicity, and avaricious cunning of the one, and the 
generosity, magnanimity, and unsuspicious nature of the 
other. 

In the first place, " a more perfect union" was far less essential 
to Virginia than to any other member of the Confederation. 
As a colony she had maintained herself in despite of the draw- 
backs and impositions of the parental or British Government, 
rather than under the fostering care of that government. At 
the termination of the Revolutionary war her population was 
more numerous than that of any other State, and she was the 
only State that sustained a navy. Now independent, she 
held in sovereign right a domain containing every source of 
wealth and power, as large as the Continent of Europe, with- 
out including Russia, the sales of which to actual settlers 
would have supplied her coffers with abundant revenues for 
years to come. She lay upon the map, for the most part, in 
the heart of the Temperate Zone, occupying the very seat and 
centre of the white man's home and dominion, as allotted by 
the Almighty. On the south she was protected against 
France and Spain by Georgia and the Carolinas ; on the 
north she was defended against Great Britain by New-Eng- 
land, New-York and Pennsylvania ; on the west there was 
nothing to alarm her save roving Indians, whose audacity she 
had often with her armies terribly reproved ; and on the east, 
while her coast line admitted of easy defence, the ocean inter- 
posed three thousand miles of turbulent waters to the sails of 
Europe. Her productions assured to her not only the neces- 
saries of life in abundance, but also a large export and 
import trade, with concomitant revenues and a commercial 
marine. 

Her numerous rivers, capable of bearing the fleets of the 
world, were dotted on every hand with flourishing towns and 
villages, wherever the law had established a point for the in- 
spection of tobacco, and Yorktown was the entrepot for Phila- 
delphia and New- York, whence the Union has transferred her 



10 RELATIVE TERRITORIAL STATUS 

glory. She had, in fine, every thing to constitute her, and to 
enable her to become in the course of half a century, the fore- 
most power on the American Continent. Yet, all these she 
surrendered to the ties of friendship, kindred, and revolution- 
ary association, and cast her lot in common with the rest. She 
reserved nothing to herself in a selfish spirit for selfish ends, 
not even the receipt of sales of her public lands, not even Ken- 
tucky to give unity and extent to her bounds, but laid them 
all on the altar of Union. 

In the second place, — to say nothing of the absence of all 
advantage and every incentive to the citizens of the South, 
with regard to the inhospitable regions surrendered by the 
North, to move and to settle in those regions ; and the imme- 
diate presence of many benefits and attractions to citizens of 
the North operating to induce them to move into the posses- 
sions surrendered by the South, and to reside there on condi- 
tions, with regard to the Northwest, more favorable, under 
the " Ordinance of 1787," than those to be enjoyed by south- 
ern citizens, and with regard to the country south of the Ohio 
river, on co-equal conditions with southern citizens — the 
Southern States, by their concessions, surrendered to the Union 
nine States? to wit: Kentucky, Tenessee, Alabama and Mis- 
sissippi, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, and 
out of these gave five to the North ; whereas, the Northern 
States, by Their concessions, surrendered only two States to 
the Union, to wit : Vermont and Maine, and gave none to the 
South. 

In the third place, the North, by these concessions, obtained 
seven States for their section, to wit : Vermont, Maine, Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin ; whereas, the 
South saved four States only for their section, to wit : Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi. 

In the fourth place, the South, by their unqualified surren- 
der of their landed possessions, with a single exception, placed 
in the general treasury a funded resource which has yielded 
nearly, if not quite, one hundred and fifty millions of dollars, 
a sum suiHoient in itself to pay the cost of all our wars 
waged since the Revolution, or of all our territorial acquisi- 
tions since made, twice told over. But the North placed noth- 
ing in the general treasury, having carefully reserved to them- 
selves the receipts of sales of lands in the whole territory of 
Maine, and Vermont being already sold out by New- York. 

And in the fifth place, by the application of the local law 
of the States relating to negro slavery to their respective ter- 
ritories, counting the eleven new States derived therefrom, 



OF THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. 



11 



with the thirteen old States, making twenty-four States within 
the hounds then existing, the South would now have fifteen 
of those States, with thirty Senators, and one hundred and 
twenty-two Representatives, according to present numbers, and 
the North would have but nine of those States, with eighteen 
Senators, and ninety-two Representatives ; whereas, the case 
is reversed, and the North have fourteen of these States, with 
twenty-eight Senatois, and one hundred and forty Rep- 
resentatives, and the South have only ten of these 
States, with twenty Senators, and seventy-four Representa- 
tives. 

Never has history recorded an act of national and political 
generosity and magnanimity so resplendent with virtue, as 
that recorded on this page of southern concession to the spirit 
of Union. Never was a page so perfumed with the Christian 
incense of " love to neighbors." And yet, how was, how has 
been, and how is the South requited by the North ? Through 
a sense of some reciprocal right, Mr. AVilson, of Pennsylvania, 
brought forward a proposition in the General Convention, 
which was engrafted in the Constitution, providing that, 
" three fifths of the negro slaves of the southern States should 
be counted as federal numbers in the apportionment of federal 
representation ;" and another provision was made in the Con- 
stitution, emanating from Mr. Dane, of Massachusetts, in the 
General Congress, as we have seen, that " Fugitive staves 
should be surrendered to their masters on claim being made.''' 1 
But the North have sought, and they still seek by various ex- 
pedients, to desecrate the first provision, notwithstanding the 
fact that every negro and every alien among them are counted 
as federal numbers ; and they utterly ignore, or render of 
none effect, the last provision ; in some States by nullifying 
the law of Congress passed ( in obedience to it; in others, by 
denying the use of their prisons and officers to the United 
States authorities seeking to enforce the law ; in others, by 
denying justice, and refusing to return the slaves so claimed ; 
in others, by prosecuting southern citizens who go among 
them to claim their slaves ; in others, by prosecuting their own 
citizens who seek, as honest men, to maintain the laws ; and 
in others, by murdering and assassinating white freemen, citi- 
zens and masters, through a real or feigned regard for negro- 
animalists, outcasts and slaves. The opprobrious epithets of 
" Punic faith" and " Perfidious Albion" discolor and dis- 
tort the records of Europe ; but " Mala fides " will disfigure 
the brow of the North to the last syllable in the annals of 
America. 



12 RELATIVE TERRITORIAL STATUS 

Let us now view the Louisiana Purchase, the Florida 
Purchase, and Texas Annexation, under the operation of 
the Missouri Compromise. 

The Constitution having been ratified by the thirteen original 
States, Vermont was received and admitted into the Union on 
March 4th, 1.791, Kentucky on June 1st, 1792, Tennessee on 
June 1st, 1796, and Ohio on November 29th, 1802, by comply- 
ing with the previous act of Congress of April 30th ; thus mak- 
ing seventeen States, eight slaveholding and nine non-slave- 
holding, leaving the North still in a sectional majority of one. 
Within existing possessions seven more States remained, jive for 
the North and two for the South, which, when admitted, would 
place the North in a sectional majority of four. The North had 
this margin in their favor at the time President Jefferson made 
his treaty with Napoleon the Great, by which we acquired from 
France, by purchase, on the 30th of April, 1803, the terri- 
tory of Orleans and the District of Louisiana. Afterward the 
territory of Orleans, under the name of Louisiana, was 
formed into a State, and admitted into the Union on the 8th 
of April, 1812. Indiana followed on December 1 1th, 1816, 
Mississippi, December 10th, 1817; Illinois, December 3d, 
1818; and Alabama, December 14th, 1819; making twenty- 
two States in all, equally divided between the North and the 
South, up to the time of the ratification of the treaty made by 
President Monroe with Spain, February 22d, 1819, through 
which we acquired Florida by purchase. It will be seen that, 
without the admission of Louisiana from the first purchase, 
the North would still, at this date, have held their former ma- 
jority of one ; and that to balance the last purchase as slave- 
holding, Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin remained to be ad- 
mitted from the old territories as non-slaveholding. Florida, 
therefore, gave no apprehension to the North in a sectional 
sense. Indeed, that section interposed no serious obstacle 
either to the treaty with France, or to that with Spain. Both 
acquisitions were too important and consequential to the whole 
Union, to justify opposition in any direction. Louisiana em- 
braced the mouths of the Mississippi river, and, combined with 
Florida, enclosed the Gulf of Mexico. Either of them, in the 
hands of a maritime enemy, would have proved disastrous to 
our internal trade and external commerce. Great Britain 
was already threatening Louisiana, nor was she indifferent to 
Florida ; and as the events of the war in Europe, bringing 
her into alliance with Spain, for which she demanded indemnity 
of that power, as well as the events of her hostilities with us in 
1812-M4 soon demonstrated, she would, in all probability, have 
grasped the one and obtained the other. With the Canadas 



OF THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. 13 

on our north and thus lodged on our south, in command of the 
mouths of the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, that enor- 
mous empire would have held us as in a vice, and compelled 
us again into subjection. Under these circumstances both ac- 
quisitions were to the United States acts of the first necessity, 
demanded equally by industrial interests and national securi- 
ty, and yielded by statesmanship without serious party dis- 
sension or Sectional division. But the sections being balanced 
in respect to States, as well as to other territorial possessions, as 
has been seen, the district of Louisiana now furnished the 
arena of sectional contention for supremacy in the Union. 
This district, together with Florida, was formerly under Span- 
ish rule, and covered all those portions of America, north of 
Mexico, not swayed by the Mexican Government. It contain- 
ed within its limits not only the present State of Louisiana, 
but also all that country now embraced by Arkansas, Mis- 
souri, Iowa, Minnesota, the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw and 
Chickasaw settlements, the eastern half of Kansas, and the 
whole of Nebraska, Washington and Oregon. The local law 
of negro slavery existing in Florida and Louisiana, was co-ex- 
tensive with the whole. The law was recognized and guaran- 
teed by the United States in an especial manner under the 
treaty with France. The Constitution itself sanctioned the 
law wherever it was found, or should be found, and wherever 
a negro slave existed, or should exist. The duty of Govern- 
ment to enforce the provisions of the treaty, and maintain the 
Constitution, was not only plain but absolute. If these prin- 
ciples should be acknowledged as binding, and the local law 
should be applied to the States thereafter to be admitted from 
the district of Louisiana, it was evident to the North that the su- 
premacy of the South would become established in the Union, 
notwithstanding the overreaching of the North in respect to the 
earlier western territories ceded in the beginning. The mind of 
the North was exercised no little on the subject, but viewed 
the question involved as one of power and sectional interest, 
rather than one of law and right and general concern. 

At this juncture Missouri presented herself for admission 
into the Union, with a Constitution acknowledging and pre- 
serving the local law in respect to negro slavery originally 
extended over her, and at once the fires of discord were kin- 
dled throughout the North. Maine had previously, but almost 
simultaneously, knocked at the doors of the Union as a non- 
slaveholding State, and was readily admitted, restoring to 
the North their old majority of one. The admission of Mis- 
souri would simply have counterbalanced that of Maine, and re- 
established equilibrium between the sections ; but the North, 



14 RELATIVE TERRITORAL STATUS 

holding a majority in the House of Representatives, denied to 
her admission. Maine sent in her petition to Congress on the 
8th of December, 1819 ; this petition was favorably acted 
upon on the 3d of March, 1820 ; and she was fully admitted 
the 15th of March, 1820, without opposition from the South. 
Missouri sent her memorial to Congress on the 29th of ~De- 
cember, 1819, only twenty-one days after that of Maine, and 
with equal qualifications for being formed into a State, yet 
she was furiously warred against by the North ; a deaf ear 
was turned to her prayer till March 2d, 1821 ; nor was she fully 
admitted before the 10th of August following. The conduct of 
the North was opposed to the very nature of the case. They 
were equally indifferent to treaty stipulation, constitutional 
provision, local law, State rights, and common justice. 
They appeared to be alike destitute of all sentiments of honor 
and of fraternity. They ignored all' gratitude to the South 
for their generous concessions in the past. They seemed to 
forget the benefits the Union had brought to them, to their 
trade, to their commerce, to- their manufactures, and to their • 
shipping. As in 1787, they threatened the very existence of 
the Confederacy, unless Missouri would agree to abandon the 
local law and surrender negro slavery. As then, with regard 
to the territory north of the Ohio river, they claimed now that 
negro slavery should be restricted from all west of the Missis- 
sippi. They forced a sectional issue in which they absorbed 
party distinction, and upon which they united as one man, 
on purely selfish grounds. They pushed their exorbitant 
demands to frightful extremity, and at all hazards. The 
South, amazed and astounded at their audacity, became at 
length disgusted at their rapacity, and indignant at their inso- 
lence. The South had taken compassion on their weakness 
and had erected them in strength. The South had bestowed 
upon them the country through which their condition had been 
maintained in a majority instead of sinking into a hopeless 
minority. The South had elevated them from indigence to 
abundance ; from inanition to fulness ; from poverty to 
wealth. The slaveholding States had never interposed an 
obstacle to the admission of a non-slaveholding State. And 
this was the requital ! to be denounced, upbraided, and in- 
sulted ; to be denied the simplest justice and the plainest 
right. The Southern people cherished, as of yore, the idea of 
Union ; but patience could bear no more ; sacrifice could do 
no more ; and charity was exhausted. Civil war was sus- 
pended even in the two chambers of Congress, between the 
Senators and Representatives sectionaliy arranged. Collision 
seemed inevitable. Eventually, from the bosom of the South, 



OF THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. 15 

as when Jefferson spoke in 178-1 , was heard the matchless 
voice of Henry Clay above the tumult and confusion, preach- 
ing again peace and compromise, and the salvation of the 
Union ; and before the spell of that ambitious and persuasive 
tongue stern brows relaxed, angry hearts subsided, and firm 
hands withdrew from the dagger's heft. 

Mr. Clay was at the time in the zenith of life, in the meri- 
dian of his fame, and in the highest enjoyment of his rare 
faculties. He had been twice Speaker of the House of Rep- 
resentatives, and twice a Senator ; he had been Minister to 
negotiate peace with Great Britain at Ghent ; he had declined 
the command of the army tendered to him by President Madi- 
son, and he now aspired to the Chief-Magistracy. He brought 
to the adjudication of the controversy his genius, his elo- 
quence, his seductive address, and his alluring blandishments. 
His movement doubtless was dictated by patriotism. That he 
was governed by honest conviction and praiseworthy sentiment 
will not be questioned ; but that his course was well calculated 

.to promote the end of his aspiring ambition, must be acknowl- 
edged Nor will it be denied, since the repeated judgmentsof 
the Supreme Court, that the terms of the adjustment wrought 
chiefly through his instrumentality, were alike violative of the 
Constitution and of the treaty with France. The terms were 
two-fold. FIR.ST, An act iv as passed on the bih of March, 
1820, applying to all that part of the Louis/ ana purchase lying- 
north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, not included 
within the bounds of Missouri, the sixth section of the Ordi- 
nance of 1787, restricting negro slavery, and providing for 
the rendition of fugitive slaves; thus establishing what is 
usually called the Missouri Compromise Line. SECOND, A 
joint resolution was passed on March 2d, 1821, accepting the 

. Constitution of Missouri, PPtOYIDED she assented never to 
construe the clause therein prohibiting the ingress of free ne- 
groes and mulaltoes, so as to exclude any citizen of any State 
from the privileges and immunities guarantied to him under 
the Constitution of the United Slates, and this is usually de- 
nominated the Missouri Compromise Proper. It matters little 
how they may have been or are separately designated, they 
were and are but parts of one whole, the latter being depend- 
ent on the former, and without which it could not have been 
favorably received. In speaking of the Missouri Compromise 
both are meant, and the first is ordinarily the more especially 
recurred to. The expression briefly means, the compromise 
wrought in respect to the Louisiana purchase, during the pe- 
riod of the struggle for the admission of Missouri as a State, 
whether affecting or not affecting Missouri directly. Through 



16 RELATIVE TERRITORIAL STATUS 

this compromise, as thus understood, the Northern Jacob again 
triumphed over the Southern Esau. 

The artifice resorted to of regarding the question affecting 
the territory of Louisiana under the Constitution, in the light 
of that previously affecting the territory of Virginia beyond 
the Ohio, before the Constitution was formed, and of applying 
to the former the provisions of the sixth section of the Ordi- 
nance of 1787, in reference to the latter, becomes at this day 
transparent even without the aid of the more recent decision 
of the Supreme Court. The territory of Virginia beyond the 
Ohio belonged to a single State, and the Ordinance of 17S7 
was in the nature of a compact or treaty between a State sov- 
ereign over the subject-matter, of the one part, and various 
States of the other part, desiring an interest in the property of 
the party of the first part; and this compact was entered into 
for the further purpose of promoting the ulterior end of our 
present Constitution, Union and Government. The Resolu- 
tions of 1784 were, until accepted by the parties of the second 
part, merely a suggestion promotive of the ulterior idea, com- 
ing from Virginia, or the party of the first part, to the other 
States, parties of the second part, through their Representa- 
tives in the General Congress ; and the Ordinance of 1787, in 
amendment of the Resolutions of 1784, or in substitution of 
those resolutions, was but a similar suggestion promotive of 
the ulterior idea, coming from the parties of the second part, 
through their Representatives, to Virginia, the party of the 
first part, until accepted by her. There were two parties, or two 
powers, appearing throughout the whole transaction — Virginia 
or her Legislature on the one side, and the rest of the States of 
the old Confederation, or Congress, on the other side. The 
territory of Louisiana, on the contrary, having been purchased 
by our present Government, belonged, under the Constitution, 
to no one State, but to each and to all the States alike, to each 
one of the slaveholding States and her citizens, and to each 
one of the non-slaveholding States and her citizens. Nor did it 
belong to the slaveholding States and their citizens of the one 
part, and to the non-slaveholding States and their citizens of 
the other part, as tenants in common entitled to equal moieties. 
It was held by the Government for each and all the citizens of 
each and all the States, and partook more of the nature of a 
joint tenancy at common law, with unity of interest, title, 
time and possession, together with the incident of survivor- 
ship attached, and therefore was incapable of being parceled 
out according to the Missouri line, without the destruction of 
the treaty with France, or the conveyance securing unity of 
title — that being a destruction of the estate itself. Nor was 



OF THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. 17 

the adjustment effected an agreement between two corporate 
persons or powers, separate parties, the one the owner of the 
subject-matter to the exclusion of the other. It was rather 
the ridiculous attempt of a single party — the government of 
the United States — to treat with himself ; or if anything could 
be more absurd, it was the effort of a person first to sever him- 
self and then cause the parts to adhere and grow together. It 
was the action of one government, in respect to a single and 
indivisible interest, general to all its citizens, as if 1 here were 
two belligerent governments in conflict over a divisible inter- 
est, a moiety of which was claimed by the citizens of each. 
It was the audacious attempt of an agent to control his prin- 
cipal, or of Congress to override the Constitution, rather than 
the action of an agent according to his letter of attorney, or 
of Congress as the instrument of the Constitution. But the 
Supreme Court have decided time and again, both in respect 
to the ordinance of 1787 and the Missouri restriction, lhat 
Congress, in view of that clause of the Constitution guarantee- 
ing to every new State perfect co-equality with the thirteen 
original States, may not impose a condition upon a Territory 
which shall operate to restrain it as a State from the enjoy- 
ment of any of the rights of any of the thirteen original States, 
and therefore, that Congress cannot restrict negro slavery in a 
Territory. This principle was decided by that august tribunal 
in the years 1844-45, and again in the years l849-'50, in a case 
involving the riparian lands of Alabama ; and again in the 
case of Permoli and the municipality of New- Orleans, on a 
question of religious freedom under the ordinance of 1787 ; 
and again in the years 1850-51, on a question of personal free- 
dom, involving the very question of Congress to impose restric- 
tions upon a Territory, that shall operate against its co- 
equality as a State ; and lastly, this principle was asserted in 
1857, in the famous Dred Scott case, rendering invalid 
and nugatory the Missouri Compromise line. It is due to Mr. 
Clay and his coadjutors in the Missouri adjustment, to say, 
that neither he nor they saw the marked difference between 
the case of Virginia ceding her possessions beyond the Ohio to 
the States of the old Confederation, under the ordinance of 
17-w, and anterior to the Constitution, and the case of the Gen- 
eral Government, having its being in, through and by the Con- 
stitution, acting in respect to the Louisiana territory under the 
Constitution, and subjecting that property to a rule not em- 
powered by the Constitution. It is moreover due to them to 
say, whatever their motives may have been, that the decisions of 
the Supreme Court leferred to above, were not then known. But 
justice to another Representative from the South at the time, 
• VOL. II. — no. i. 2 



18 RELATIVE TERRITORIAL STATUS 

whose destiny it seems to have been in both chambers of Con- 
gress to encounter perilous scenes, and since to wield the sceptre 
of the^chief-magistracy with a firm, unflinching and successful 
hand, in the midst of trying emergencies of state as well asappal- 
ing personal circumstances, requires it to be said that his heart 
did not quail, nor was his judgment clouded, before the terrors 
of the controversy in the midst of which he stood on the Missouri 
question. John Tyler then saw the distinctions since drawn 
by the Supreme Court : then eliminated in his mind the true 
principles of the Constitution ; then, as ever, stood by those 
principles as the only ark of safety in the storm and tempest 
of civil commotion ; and then, though his breast heaved, as 
was its wont always, with the throb of peace and union, op- 
posed and voted against the Missouri restriction. In this age, 
when conscience yields so readily to corrupting art or selfish 
designs, it gives me pleasure to state further of this illustrious 
citizen, that in all the course of his long and varied service 
to his country, his name has never been affixed to roll or 
record, stipulating a compromise of any right, or of any princi- 
ple asserted by the great charter of the government. In his 
stern integrity he never recognized that convenient method of 
avoiding the full performance of those strict duties imperative- 
ly exacted of him, as of all in association with the govern- 
ment, under an oath to the Most High. Although the malice 
of the ambitious, whose purposes he thwarted, may have 
sought to detract from his just fame ; history asserts of him the 
truth, that ambition never lured him from the path of recti- 
tude, nor soiled his escutcheon. 

By the Missouri adj ustment and the application of the Mis- 
souri line to the territory of Louisiana, the North gained from 
that territory to their sectional interest, notwithstanding the 
local law, the treaty with France, and the Constitution, all the 
present domain of Iowa, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, Ne- 
braska, and the eastern half of Kansas, and the South reserv- 
ed to themselves only that of Missouri, Arkansas, and the In- 
dian Territory west of Arkansas. The whole was slavehold- 
ing, or at least subject to the local law itself guaranteed by the 
treaty with France ; yet the South surrendered to the North 
a region five times as large as that they reserved to their own 
institutions. From the Virginia cession of l784-'87, Michi- 
gan and Wisconsin still remained to be admitted as non-slave- 
holding States ; and from the Louisiana purchase, the North 
now secured an extent of country for future settlement, capa- 
ble of being formed into twenty additional States of the mag- 
nitude of Louisiana proper. With these overwhelming ad- 
vantages in a sectional view, one would suppose their rapaci- 



OF THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. 19 

ty would have been satiated, and that they would have con- 
tinued inflexible on the Missouri adjustment as the basis of 
their conduct. We are no little surprised, therefore, when we 
find them after the lapse of fifteen years, in March, 1836, 
standing arrayed in solid column in the Halls of Congress, 
openly disregarding that adjustment and opposed to the admis- 
sion of Arkansas ; nor did they yield to the admission of Ar- 
kansas as a slaveholding State on June 15th, 1830, until si- 
multaneously providing for the admission of Michigan within 
six months, as a counter non-slaveholding State, by which 
provision that State was brought into the Union on January 
26th, 1837. 

The period of the annexation of Texas, by President Tyler, 
on March 1st, 1845, and of the introduction of Florida to the 
Union under the same executive auspices, on March 3d, 1845, 
has now been reached. Reviewing the field passed over, we 
find the Union composed of twenty-six States, evenly divided 
between the North and the South, and consequently, a sec- 
tional equilibrium in the Senate, but in every other respect a 
vast disparity. The territory reserved to the South at the time 
of the formation of the Constitution, and afterward under the 
Missouri adjustment, with the admission of Florida, and the 
settlement of the friendly Indians in the country west of Ar- 
kansas, both of which were in process of final completion and 
may be considered as accomplished, was fully exhausted ; 
whereas to the North remained a mighty scope for future en- 
largement, stretching across the continent to the Pacific ocean; 
and they held a majority in the House of Representatives. 
They had played with the South for sectional equality in the 
Union, and meeting an easy and pliant nature, terminated their 
game by winning preponderance. They began to act already, 
like men conscious of power, and who love authority for selfish 
ends, regardless of principle. But the North had not as yet 
become so far developed as to constitute the South an inferior 
opponent, nor had the South lost' their superiority of moral 
force ; and there were minds at the South that ill brooked the 
new bearing of the North. The restless and sagacious genius 
of John C. Calhoun had caught the portents of the future ; 
resolved the questions to arise, as the North gathered strength 
in the west and on the Pacific ; and sounded the alarm 
throughout the South. The movements of the abolitionists at 
the North had increased the agitation at the South. A grow- 
ing tendency toward sectional formation, now on the part of 
the South, as well as on the part of the North, where for years 
it had been progressing, was apparent ; and civil commotion 
and disunion were plainly discernible in the political horo- 
scope. 



20 RELATIVE TERRITORIAL STATUS 

This ominous condition of the Republic, present and pros- 
pective, was readily apprehended by President Tyler, and be- 
came reduced by him at once in the crucibie of statesmanship. 
He had already hammered his vetoes through the head of the 
bank, and destroyed that iniquity forever ; redeemed the pros- 
trated credit and finances of the government ; relieved the 
country from the odius state of bankruptcy and demoralization 
into which it had fallen ; terminated the Florida war by a 
summer campaign, and removed the hostile Indians ; settled 
the northeast boundary difficulty, and all other matters of 
variance with Great Britain ; and opened the fabulous Orient 
to our commerce through the treaty he formed with China. 
He now directed his energies toward the restoration of har- 
mony between the North and the South, the preservation 
of the Constitution, and the perpetuation of the Union. It 
was evident these high objects could only be reached through 
the re-establishment of the territorial equilibrium of the sec- 
tions, which, in itself, was only attainable through the an- 
nexation of Texas. 

The subject considered by President Tyler was not that re- 
garded by the "mousing politicians" of that day, to use his 
own expression ; nor that which absorbs the attention of the 
selfish and aspiring political partisans of the present day. It 
was not limited by him, as by them, to the one idea, of the 
perpetuation of the Union through the form of the Consti- 
tution, but without the Constitution ; nor to the other idea, of 
the preservation of parti/ and the perpetuation of the Union, 
through a compromise of the Constitution ; but it was broader 
and deeper, more honest and more manly, and embraced the 
preservation of the Constitution and the perpetuation of the 
Union, or conversely, the perpetuation of the Union, and the 
preservation of the Constitution. The subject stood with him 
as it did with the Fathers, alone on the two associated and in- 
separable ideas linked together as one ; and the Union stood 
with him as it stood with the Fathers, alone on the Constitu- 
tion, AND OTHER THAN THAT IT HAD NO FOUNDATION. 

In addition to these lofty designs connected with civil tran- 
quillity, the Constitution and the Union, contemplated by 
President Tyler in the annexation of Texas, others no less 
consequential to our domestic relations, as well as to our for- 
eign affairs, blended themselves with the question. Policy in 
its largest sense, searching, profound, and towering to the. most 
elevated heights of statesmanship, dictated the movement. 
The monopoly of the cotton plant thus to be acquired, would 
subject the manufacturing kingdoms of Europe to our mer- 
cy; hold the civilized world in bonds to keep our peace; 
and eventually lead to our acquisition of Cuba. Texas and 






OF THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. 



21 



Cuba, united with Florida and Louisiana, would landlock the 
Grulf of Mexico, and shut in securely the mouths of innumera- 
ble tributaries flowing from all directions, watering and drain- 
ing inexhaustible valleys spreading out eastward and west- 
ward two thousand miles to the Appalachian and Alleghany 
mountains on the one hand, and the Rocky Mountains on the 
other hand ; and extending northward an equal distance to the 
lake plateau, already teeming with human life and human 
wealth, and capable of sustaining in luxurious ease three hun- 
dred millions of people. Such were the elements compos- 
ing the grand idea of Texas annexation. First, to equalize 
seotional antagonisms, whether arising in prejudice or passion, 
in differences of social institutions or of political organizations ; 
as thus, to enlarge our domain, but thereby to balance sectional 
limits ; to extend our domain, but thereby to balance section- 
al powers ; to increase our resources, but thereby to balance 
sectional interests ; so that oppressive sectional majorities, 
wantoning in the mad exercise of authority, tearing the 
Constitution into shreds, and desecrating the Union, should 
never be attainable ; but permitting the confederacy to ex- 
pand State by State, slaveholding and non-slaveholding, side 
by side in amity and in perpetuity ; second, to establish 
peace internally, by assuring against civil discord, not through 
the repression of overgrowing forces, but by bringing coun- 
ter-forces into equalizing play ; and externally, by effectually 
closing the entrances of our main avenues, and by grasping 
in cotton, the raw material in chief, for manufacturing pur- 
poses, without an annual supply of which starvation would 
visit the nations ; thus reposing the country in all its industrial 
pursuits, upon the undisturbed basis of an expanding civili- 
zation, securing individual comfort and happiness together 
with general wealth and prosperity, but not the one without 
the other, and terminating in unbounded national greatness 
and glory. 

Texas, after nobly struggling for years against the tyranny 
of Mexican rule, at length, on the 21st day of April, in the 
year 1836, gallantly won her independence on the bloody field 
of San Jacinto. Santa Anna, the dictator of Mexico, having 
been taken prisoner in the general rout after the battle, in a 
treaty made with the President of Texas, on the 14th day of 
May following, stipulating for himself and his government, 
solemnly acknowledged her independence. Afterward the 
United States, Great Britain, France and other powers recog- 
nized her among the nations. But the Mexican tyrant had 
no sooner recovered his liberty and his government, than with 
his usual remorseless treachery, he refused to abide by the 
Treaty of the 14th of May, and threatened her with re-con- 



22 RELATIVE TERRITORIAL STATUS 

quest. With a sparse and scattered population dependent 
on the soil for sustenance and support, and difficult at all 
times of concentration in force, she was harassed with con- 
tinued alarm. In addition, her unhappiness was now greatly 
enhanced by the artful diplomacy of Great Britain. That 
avaricious power, it was perceived, had been led to recognize 
her independence through motives of self-interest, rather than 
those of magnanimityj-ihrough the policy of first detaching 
her from Mexico, and then of grasping her to herself. To 
Great Britain her value would have been incalculable. She 
lay upon the map, measuring at least three hundred thousand 
square miles — covering a space equal to that of the French 
Empire under the first Napoleon ; fronting on the Gulf of 
Mexico three hundred miles ; beginning at the twenty-sixth 
degree of north latitude and reaching the forty-second degree ; 
extending from the Gulf, between the Rio Grande skirting her 
southern and southwestern boundary eighteen hundred miles, 
and the Sabine and Red rivers forming her eastern and north- 
eastern boundary six hundred miles, and thence between the 
department of Upper California as then known, and Nebraska as 
then known, to the southern line of Oregon ; and consequently 
embracing,besides Texas proper, one third of what is now known 
as New Mexico, one half of what is now known as Kansas, and 
a part of what is now known as Utah. She possessed along 
the coast a cotton and sugar region of inexhaustible fertility, 
as large as the State of Virginia ; she possessed along the Sabine 
and Red rivers, a tobacco and grain region, of unsurpassed 
productiveness, as large as the State of New- York l^she pos- 
sessed on her upper streams, and stretching to the mountains, 
a grass and grazing region, equal to any in the world, as 
large as Virginia and New- York combined ; and she possessed 
a mineral region, rich in gold, silver, quicksilver, and pre- 
cious stones, and interspersed with habitable valleys, as large 
as the whole of New-England. Great Britain clearly saw 
that with such a country subject to her controlling influences, 
or under her power, she would no longer feel the fatal mis- 
take she committed in regard to negro emancipation in the 
West Indies, and that she would no longer be dependent on 
the United States for the support of her manufacturing inte- 
rests ; and further, that she could at one and the same time 
draw her supplies of cotton, sugar, and tobacco from Texas, 
extend her dominion over Mexico, and break down republi- 
can institutions and republican advancement in America. 
The stakes at issue were great, and Lord Palmerston played 
the game with marked ability and consummate adroitness. 
The subtle " coquetry''' between the hero of San Jacinto and 



OF THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. 23 

himself came at length to wear the appearance of something 
more than honesty, to the infinite concern and deep mortification 
of the people. And yet what could the people do to avert the 
catastrophe they dreaded, of a fettering alliance with Great 
Britain, unless they accepted an endless and perfectly ex- 
hausting war with Mexico and the frontier Indians ? During 
the ten years of strife already endured, agriculture, their 
only resource, had nearly died out, and the public treasury 
was empty. They had, moreover, presented themselves to 
President Van Buren for annexation to the United States, and 
had been contemptuously rejected. They knew the influences 
of the North had counselled their rejection, and that nothing 
had occurred to change the tone of those influences. Threat- 
ened with invasion from Mexico ; imperilled by British diplo- 
macy ; rejected by the United States; with exhausted 
resources and spent with toil ; such was the situation and 
condition of that magnificent State and brave people when 
President Tyler came to the rescue of the one, the relief 
of the other, and to the safety, honor and giory of the Ameri- 
can Union. 

It is not my province here to enter upon the political de- 
tails of the question. I shall address myself to them more 
at large, in the treatment of another subject, the first num- 
ber of which appeared in March last, and which will be con- 
tinued as reflection matures and leisure permits. Suffice 
it to say, that in accomplishing the great work of annexation, 
the steps taken by President Tyler, from the beginning to the 
end, indicate his thorough appreciation of its magnitude, 
import and consequence, the circumstances surrounding it, 
and the almost insurmountable difficulties to be overcome in 
its achievement. These difficulties rested not alone with the 
diplomatists of Great Britain, the rulers of Mexico, and some 
of the most eminent citizens of Texas, occupying high seats in 
her government, and enjoying much of the confidence of the 
people ; they were still more formidable and embarrassing as 
they were presented in the United States. Not only were 
the North hostile to the admission of any additional slave 
States, but they were still more hostile to the idea of being 
again equalized by the South in the Union. Nor was it by 
any means certain that the South, under the control of their 
political leaders, intent then, as now, on designs of mere per- 
sonal selfishness, would come up to the question. Parties 
stood divided between Mr. Van Buren on the one side, who, 
as we have seen, had already refused his countenance to the 
movement, and Mr. Clay on the other side, who was intensely 
inimical to President Tyler. Through the bank vetoes, now 



24 RELATIVE TERRITORIAL STATUS 

universally applauded, but then bitterly denounced, Presi- 
dent Tyler stood without a distinctive party in or out of Con- 
gress. He seems, nevertheless, to have determined, with Ro- 
man will and Roman courage, to meet all the requirements 
of his official position, in view of the immense interests in- 
volved, and to leave the rest to history and to Grod. He called 
together his Cabinet ; made known to them his resolution to 
bring forward the measures ; desired from each one a candid and 
decided expression of sentiment on the. point, and as to 
whether he would unswervingly advocate the policy ; and 
those of them who either objected to the measure, or seemed 
disposed to halt at its advocacy, were invited to resign. 
The Cabinet was reconstructed as a unit. Abel P. Upshur, 
that man of spotless virtue, profound learning, high courage, 
and pure principle — too soon lost to his country — was trans- 
ferred from the Navy to the State Department, and negotia- 
tions with Texas, through her minister, the accomplished Van 
Zandt, were immediately opened at Washington. 

The news of the movement took wing, and the politicians 
were thrown into confusion. Mr. Clay, having retired from 
the Senate, was quietly awaiting at Ashland, in dignified 
retirement, the forthcoming nomination of the " Whig party," 
as a prelude to victory over Mr. Van Buren, and of his in- 
duction into the chief-magistracy on the 4th of March, 1845. 
Mr. Van Buren, with his accustomed smile on his lips, happily 
anticipating his restoration to popular favor through the de- 
feat of Mr. Clay, equally confident of the nomination of the 
Democratic party, calmly reposed at Kinderhook. For three 
years past they had held the leaders of their respective organ- 
izations tightly braced in the traces, and had muzzled the 
press save for their own purposes. The administration, during 
all this time, had been attended with wanton misrepresenta- 
tion, and if there be excepted a few gallant and conscientious 
spirits who stood by it in the House of Representatives, 
styled derisively the " corporal's guard" and a single news- 
paper of limited circulation, called the " Madisonian" from 
which all patronage had been carefully removed under parti- 
san acts of Congress, it had been left for vindication to Time 
the Retributor ! the Rectifier ! the Healer ! But now the 
press had broke loose from its fetters in various directions, 
the suppressed sentiment of the people was heard giving 
voice, and dismay and terror seized the hearts at Kinderhook 
and Ashland. It soon became evident to Mr. Clay, as well as 
to Mr. Van Buren, that for the one to sustain the measure 
and the other to oppose it, would be simply to insure defeat 
to the latter. That either both must sustain it, or both must 



OF THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. 20 

oppose it, That if both sustained it, all the advantages aris- 
ing from its success would accrue to Mr. Tyler as its origina- 
to?and mover ; and he, in all probability, would thereby be 
constituted a dangerous competitor, first, in the selection of 
delegates to the approaching nominating convention of the 
Democracy at Baltimore, and second, without that, as an inde- 
pendent candidate before the people direct. They also saw 
that to oppose it would be hazardous, unless done concur- 
rently, and with unanimity among their followers. But to 
oppose it was deemed best; and how to engender unanimity 
was the solitary point to be considered, if the field was to be 
occupied by themselves alone ? Under these circumstances 
it became convenient for Mr. Tan Bnren to pay a visit of 
courtesy to his distinguished rival at Ashland, and that civ- 
ility of course had to be returned by Mr. Clay to Kinderhook. 
It moreover became convenient for them, shortly afterward, 
to prepare and publish, each on the same day, the one in the 
Globe journal, and the other in the National Intelligencer, 
letters antagonistic to annexation. 

In the meanwhile the negotiations between Mr. Upshur and 
Mr. Van Zandt went on. By the 28th day of February, 1 844, 
the issues raised were all adjusted, the conditions to be observed 
were all settled, and the treaty itself, in the handwriting of 
Mr. Upshur, stood ready for the copyist, only awaiting his la- 
bor, and the signatures of the high contracting parties, to be 
forwarded to the Senate. But that fatal day brought with it 
a respite. The wonderful powers of the Princeton steamship 
claimed the attention of the Secretary of the Navy, and the 
chivairic Stockton, her builder and commander, had engaged 
the members of government and other distinguished function- 
aries, together vtitri many " fair women and brave men," to 
honor the occasion of the display. The sky was serene, the 
air was calm, and " all went merry as a marriage bell," when, 
with the closing scene and the setting sun, a terrible accident 
spread disaster around; stilled the great hearts and minds of Up- 
shur and Gilmer in death ; lost to President Tyler at one and the 
same time his most precious friends and his most cherished offi- 
cers, and plunged the nation in tears and mourning for two of their 
most valuable and distinguished citizens. But again the Cab- 
inet was organized ; John C. Calhoun became the successor of 
Abel P. Upshur, and the work went on. At the suggestion of 
Mr. Calhoun a few new ideas were advanced and arranged; a 
few alterations and additions were made ; the forms were all 
completed, and on April 22, 1844, Mr. Tyler having fully per- 
formed his duty in the premises, called upon the Senate to do 
theirs, by confirming the treaty. The senators, for the most 



26 RELATIVE TERRITORIAL STATUS 

part recreant to the trust of patriotism, but true as partisans 
to the fortunes of Mr. Clay and Mr. Van Buren, considered, 
only to reject it. 

The action of the Senate on the treaty with Texas, was in 
curious contrast with that previously pursued in reference to 
the treaty in 'promotion of our agricultural interests, formed 
by the President with the States of the Zollverein. In both' 
cases, it is only too true, they acted rather as political partisans 
than as grave and conscientious patriots ; and in both cases 
they dared not risk the popular effect of a confirmation upon 
the fortunes of Mr. Tyler. But in respect to the Zollverein 
treaty, they apprehended as much danger from the people 
through its rejection, as through its confirmation. The very 
fact of its rejection would have brought home to the planters 
its importance to their interests, and would have invoked their 
wrath and denunciation against the Senate. It had been 
formed in secret, as it could only have been formed, looking to 
the antagonistic influences in Europe, and, as yet, the planters 
knew nothing of its provisions. To suspend action upon it, 
therefore, until the time specified for the exchange of ratifi- 
cations expired, would be to maintain the veil of secrecy over 
it, and to bury it alive. They did so bury it, and to this 
day the planters continue in blind ignorance of the most conse- 
quential treaty to them ever made by the Government, with an 
eye specially directed to their we/fare. The negotiations with 
Texas, on the contrary, were known to be in progress ; the 
object in view of those negotiations was known ; the people 
were looking on the whole proceeding with the deepest con- 
cern, and any covert attempt at its suppression would have 
roused indignation throughout the land. As partisans, under 
letters of instruction from their chieftains, daring not to con- 
firm it, they determined to unite their forces and boldly crush 
it out before the country. It is useless here to say that their 
efforts signally failed, and only covered its perpetrators with 
defeat and shame. 

The manner in which the Fates finally wrought through the 
Texas policy, the fall of Mr. Clay and of Mr. Yan Buren, and 
the triumph of Mr. Tyler, presents one of the most remarkable 
pictures in history. The one, in self-forgetfulness and through 
selfish disappointment, had denounced Mr. Tyler as '• a iveak, 
vacillating, and impotent chief-magistrate ;" and the other 
had smilingly welcomed that denunciation, and shaken hands 
with the passionate traducerat Ashland. While the two were 
arranging for ambitious purposes among their followers in pos- 
session of Congress, a combined opposition against the admin- 
istration and the cause of the country, and with that wicked 



OF THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. 27 

intent were simultaneously preparing and publishing their 
letters of onslaught in the Globe and National Intelligencer, 
as the leading organs of their partisans, Heaven was raising 
up to the cause of the country and to the side of President 
Tyler, two men no less extraordinary and popular in their re- 
spective spheres, and upon whom ambition no longer operated, 
the one without the knowledge of the other, but each equally 
earnest and emphatic, and prompted equally by the loftiest 
considerations of national safety and prosperity. These two 
men were Andrew Jackson and Nicholas Biddle. The voice 
of the latter, it is true, was drowned in the clamor of section- 
alism raised by his old adherents in behalf of Mr. Clay, upon 
his Texas manifesto of the twenty-seventh of April, and who 
received the nomination of the National Republicans among 
them on the second of May following. But the voice of 
Andrew Jackson, as that of a tried leader, whether as warrior 
or whether as civilian, who always knew where danger threat- 
ened and the path to victory, never passed unheeded by the 
Democracy. Through it, at this juncture, many were brought 
to reflection, and to perceive that Mr. Van Buren occupied a 
position in the rear of Mr. Clay at the North, and one, at the 
same time, absolutely fatal to hope at the South. About this 
period it was also seen that the friends of Mr. Tyler, although 
not numerous, yet held, in all probability, the balance of 
power in several States ; and that in a single-handed contest 
between Mr. Clay and Mr. Van Buren, through their affilia- 
tions and antipathies of 1840, they would prefer the former to 
the latter. Under these circumstances, thoughtful men, to se- 
cure the defeat of Mr. Van Buren's nomination, and the support 
of the friends of Mr. Tyler, in behalf of a different candidate, 
I'esolved upon the two thirds ride, and made known the fact to 
Mr. Tyler. He determined to assure himselfof these results, and 
discovering that his old " State-Rights Republican Guard" 
were disposed to waver through the idea of Mr. Van Buren's 
nomination, called them together in separate convention, upon 
his own name, and in that manner held them in readiness for 
a decisive charge after the action of the Democratic Conven- 
tion. On the 13th day of May the Democratic Convention 
assembled ; the two thirds rule was applied ; Mr. Van Buren 
was discarded ; James K. Polk was nominated ; and Mr. Tyler, 
withdrawing his name from before the people, hurled his 
" Guard" in conjunction with the forces of Mr. Polk, upon 
the columns of Mr. Clay, and thus, while prostrating Mr. Van 
Buren, struck down Mr. Clay, retributively for the Missouri 
Restriction, for the rejection of Texas, for the suppression of 
the Zollvcreui treaty, and for the bank, tariff and internal 



- " ■"' — '■■ ■ • 



28 RELATIVE TERRITORIAL STATUS 

improvement iniquities against the South, the Constitution, 
and the country — no more to rise, neither of them, forever. 

Nor was the movement for Texas lost. Sixteen Senators, 
among whom James Buchanan was prominent, stood firm by 
the treaty ; and when Congress adjourned, after its rejection by 
the CJayites and Yan-Burenites, the members returned to their 
constituencies, to find the Democratic masses up in arms in 
favor of immediate annexation. With them the question soon 
became the most prominent in the presidential campaign. 
Discovering this, President Tyler and Mr. Calhoun lost no time 
in assuaging the mortified pride of Texas, consequent on the 
rejection of the treaty, and in preparing the way for re-open- 
ing the subject. These preliminary steps being taken, on the 
reassembling of Congress the President urged upon their wis- 
dom instantaneous action. It was equally plain that, under 
the renewed energies and artifices of British diplomacy, Texas 
would be lost to the Union with further delay, and that the 
next movement in the direction of annexation, to be success- 
ful, must originate with that branch of the government where- 
in objection had resided. These suggestions of the President, 
now that mere political issues had ceased to operate, were fa- 
vorably received by Congress. The measure came up in va- 
rious shapes, but finally assumed the form of Joint Resolu- 
tions, to be approved by the President and by Texas. These 
Resolutions passed through both Houses on the first day of 
March, 1S45, zoere on that day approved by President Tyler, 
were by him despatched by special hand to Texas, and as far 
as all action on the part of the Government of the United 
States was concerned, the LONE STAR blended her rays with 
those in the lustrous galaxy of the UNION. 

By the resolutions of annexation it was provided, among 
other things, to satisfy the North, that the. Missouri line as a 
recognized compact on the subject of slavery, acted upon and 
acquiesced in for twenty-five years, and as received and es- 
tablished by law, unreversed by the Supreme Court, should be 
accepted and applied ; and second, to satisfy the South, that five 
States might be formed within the territorial limits of the Re- 
public of Texas. 

Thus the present and prospective territorial equilibrium of the 
slaveholding and non-slaveholding sections, so long fluctuating, 
to the imminent peril of the'country, was secured ; thus the per- 
manent peace, prosperity and advancement of the Confederacy 
were assured, and thus the Constitution and the Union were 
established on a firm, just, and lasting foundation. It will be, 
however, our sad and painful task hereafter, to trace the man- 
ner in which this noble, well-considered, and far-reaching 



OF THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. 



29 



statesmanship of President Tyler became subverted by and 
through the vain, thoughtless, and short-sighted policy that 
followed after. "Python.' 



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